The Secret Sub-Base
The Secret Sub-Base was a comic strip story which was first published in the TV Express Weekly first published in TV Express issue 345 (10 Jun 1961) to issue 357 (2 Sep 1961). The strip, published in colour, was the third Biggles comic to be drawn by Mike Western for TV Express after he had taken over the series from Ron Embleton. A French translation of the story was later carried in issues 39 and 40 of the small format comic magazine Rin Tin Tin published by SAGE in May and June 1963 under the title Biggles retrouve von Stalhein (Biggles meets von Stalhein again). In 2003, Belgian publisher Miklo reissued this and several other Biggles comic stories as an album entitled Sabotage à Canberra, part of its Biggles Heritage series. The original strips on TV Express did not carry a story title. The Miklo compilation on its bibliography on the last page rendered the English title as Biggles on the Cornish Coast although it is not clear how this was arrived at. Between 2007-2010, Express Publications published compilations of various TV Express Biggles stories in three volumes each of a very limited run of only 30 copies. Here the story was given the title The Secret Sub-Base. This first available English title is used for this article.This French webpage contains good information about the TV Express Comics. Synopsis An unidentified submarine destroys a British patrol boat off the coast of Cornwall. Biggles and the Air Police crew join in the search and they meet their old adversary again. Plot (Click on expand to read) A British patrol boat spots an unidentified submarine on the surface off the Cornish coast. There is a brief exchange of fire and the patrol boat is sunk. The Admiralty launches a search and also calls on the Air Police. Biggles, Bertie and Ginger patrol the coastline of Cornwall in a Sunderland and spot an oil slick. They put down on the water for a closer look and find that it's diesel, and not crude oil which one might expect from a tanker which had sprung a leak. Back in the air, Bertie sees a dark form under the surface. A submarine! That night, Biggles and co. drive to the spot and don scuba gear for an underwater inspection. Diving down, they enter an underwater cave. Inside they find a fully equipped submarine base with lots of u-boats moored. But the Germans in the base have spotted them too and they are all caught in a net and fished out of the water. Their captor is none other that their old friend Erich von Stalhein! He orders them taken on board a u-boat and be given an "accident" out at sea. Inside the submarine, Biggles waits for the right moment and makes a flying leap at von Stalhein. Meanwhile Bertie disarms another guard while Ginger swings the helm and collides the submarine against the walls of the cave. The Air Policemen have escaped into the forward compartment so von Stalhein orders the u-boat crew to seal it off and then to evacuate the boat. The Germans can afford to wait--Biggles and co. have only an hour of oxygen trapped inside. But Biggles isn't giving up. They are in the forward torpedo room. There are torpedoes in the tubes so Biggles fires them. They can't get out but perhaps they can fire the weapons and destory von Stalhein's base. The results are even greater than he expected. One torpedo hits the torpedo storage of the base and there is a mighty explosion which destroys the base. The resultant tidal wave sweeps their submarine out, wrecking it on the beach. With his usual luck, von Stalhein is also swept out and dumped ashore. Better yet, he finds Biggles' parked car. Characters The Special Air Police *Air Commodore Raymond *Biggles *Ginger Hebblethwaite *Bertie Lissie Others *Erich von Stalhein Aircraft *Short Sunderland *De Havilland Mosquito *Supermarine Spitfire Places Visited *London *Cornwall Research notes Illustrations Editions References and external links Category:Derivative works Category:Work in progress